Sometime around 1944, an 11-year-old boy, growing up motherless and wild in Seattle, broke into a military store to steal some food. Prowling about inside he spotted a piano in the supervisor’s room; he was about to move on, when a childish instinct (which he later referred to as “God’s whisper”) urged him to go and tinkle on it. The incident not only changed the life of the little boy, but also, perhaps, the history of popular music; for that little boy was none other than Quincy Delight Jones Jr., one of the titans of modern music, who, for the last eight decades strode the realm of popular culture like a colossus, leaving an indelible imprint on music, cinema, and television, broadway.
Years later, he remembered the incident: “The first time I touched it (the piano)… every cell in my body said this is what you will do for the rest of your life.” Quincy, the man who arranged and conducted Frank Sinatra’s iconic 1964 album, ‘It Might as Well be Swing’, and produced Michael Jackson’s three biggest albums ‘Off the Wall’ (1979), Thriller (1982) and ‘Bad’ (1987), passed away on November 3. He was 91 and his death closed one of the most important chapters of contemporary music.
No single individual has had as much influence and impact on successive generations of musicians and music lovers as Quincy. There was not a single genre of music that he did not enhance with his unique vision and genius: bebop jazz, big band orchestra, gospel, blues, pop, rock n’ roll, rhythm and blues, rock, soul, disco, funk, hip-hop, rap. Quincy has left his magical mark on all of them. He also produced films and hit television shows, composed the soundtracks for some of the most important films of Hollywood, and arranged and conducted music for legends. He was a cultural polymath, who moved seamlessly within diverse musical genres, mixed styles, and introduced radically new aspects to time-bound musical traditions without ever compromising on the essential aspect of the music or of the artiste whose work he was producing.
He collaborated with the biggest names of every genre of music, in every stage of the evolution of popular culture. And each of the greats—from Frank Sinatra to Michael Jackson to Kool Moe Dee— have expressed their gratitude for Quincy’s contribution to their music.
The Jazz years
Born March 14, 1933 in Chicago, Quincy’s father, Quincy Jones Sr. was a carpenter, employed by a local mob. His mother Sarah, a highly educated woman and a polyglot, was schizophrenic and had to be institutionalised. Young Quincy and his younger brother grew up practically motherless amid gang wars in the crime-infested ghettos of Chicago. Music was a refuge for Quincy, a security blanket for a child who could not get along with his step mother.
He had dabbled with a number of instruments, before settling for the trumpet as his main tool of musical expression. His hero, was after all, the great Dizzy Gillespie. By the time he was 18, he was playing the trumpet in Lionel Hampton’s jazz ensemble in 1951. The legendary vibraphone player, who was once a key part, along with Charlie Christian, in Benny Goodman’s band in the 1930s and 1940s, was at that time at the peak of his popularity. Young Quincy had already cut his teeth as a musician, playing in night clubs (even though he was just 15 at that time!), churning out various kinds of music as the situation demanded. On one occasion he even accompanied Billie Holiday.
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The teenage Quincy’s musicianship caught the eye of the legendary jazz pianist Count Basie, who had even bought one of Quincy’s early compositions. In 1959, Basie would record one of his many great albums, ‘Basie One More Time’, with the subtitle, ‘Music from the Pen of Quincy Jones’. A critic said Quincy’s composition helped “expand the Baise sound without altering it.” That particular aspect of Quincy Jones’s music will remain one of his most enduring legacies. He helped “expand” the music of an artiste, find new expressions in it, and with a subtle touch, make it immortal, without compromising the musical signature of the performer.
For Michael Jackson’s 1979 hit, ‘Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’ (Off the Wall album), Quincy had introduced a violin riff, which Michael was not initially comfortable with. Michael believed it did not gel with the disco-funk sound that he wanted for the song. Quincy, however, insisted that it remain, and that violin riff is one of the most recognisable sounds in the album.
Quincy’s genre-transcending vision not only helped create classics for generations of musicians, but also introduce new sounds and bring in new phases in popular music.
After touring extensively in the early 1950s with Lionel Hampton’s band, Dizzy Gillespie’s ensemble and other top jazz groups, Quincy turned his attention to composing. His first big break came from the legendary Dinah Washington, who, in the 1940s, sang for Lionel Hampton’s orchestra. In 1955, the 30 year old ‘Queen of the Blues’, while cutting an album for EmArcy Records, insisted the then relatively unknown Quincy be the arranger for the recordings. The result was the masterpiece, ‘For Those in Love.’ Quincy was enamoured with Washington’s voice, and knew exactly what to do to bring it out best in the recordings. “She could take the melody in her hand, hold it like an egg, crack it open, fry it, let it sizzle, reconstruct it, put the egg back in the box and back in the refrigerator, and you would’ve still understood every single syllable of every single word she sang. Every single melody she sang she made hers.” It was not just a musical collaboration the two had entered into. But even after their affair ended, they remained close friends and collaborated on 10 albums.
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In the early days, with a star like Washington promoting him, Quincy quickly became a much sought-after arranger. Though just in his mid-20s, he had already won the respect of some of the biggest names in the music industry at that time. Quincy could immediately identify the unique qualities in a great singer, and some of the greatest singers, in turn, put their trust completely on Quincy. Some of the other genre-defining vocalists down the ages who collaborated with Quincy include, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard and Chaka Khan.
At the same time, he was also bringing out his own compositions. His first album as a band leader was ‘This is How I Feel about Jazz’ (1956). Writing and composing music was a passion for him, but to equip himself further, Quincy moved to France in 1957, and learnt music composition from the famed classical composer and teacher, Juliette Nadia Boulanger. In 1958, the princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly, was organising a fund raising concert for the United Nations, in which Frank Sinatra had agreed to perform. Grace approached Quincy to arrange an orchestra to back Sinatra, a star who was not the easiest to please. But Ol’ Blue Eyes was so impressed with Quincy that he hired him six years later to arrange the music for his 1964 album with Count Basie, ‘It Might as Well be Swing.”
Two years later Quincy conducted and arranged Sinatra’s historic live album ‘Sinatra at the Sands.’ Theirs was an enduring friendship till Sinatra died in 1998. Quincy also produced Sinatra’s final solo album, ‘L.A. is My Lady’ (1984). Before Sinatra died, he had bequeathed Quincy a ring with his family crest, which the latter always wore on his little finger. “Now when I go to Sicily, I don’t need a passport, I just flash the ring,” Quincy had joked.
Enter Hollywood
His association with a star like Sinatra allowed Quincy to foray into a field that was not common to black musicians at that time, composing scores for Hollywood. He conducted the music in iconic films such as ‘Walk Don’t Run’ (1966), ‘In the Heat of the Night’ (1967), Mackenna’s Gold (1969), ‘The Italian Job’ (1969) and ‘They Call me Mister Tibbs!’ (1970). He was also the first black executive at a major record label, when Mercury Records roped him in as a full-time executive in 1961, and produced monster hits for various artistes including Sammy Davis Jr, Lesley Gore, Peggy Lee and others.
At a time when pop and rock ‘n’ roll had taken over the world, Quincy, with his jazz background and big band orchestra, could easily have failed in the corporate world of record production if it were not for his ear for a hit and his gift for creating magic with sounds. In 1963, he discovered 16-year-old Lesley Gore and produced her million-selling hit song ‘It’s My Party’, a straight pop ballad of teenage heartbreak, which he transformed by introducing Latin rhythms and horns. He also double-tracked the vocals to give it the anguished sound of heartbreak. ‘Its My Party’ was a number one hit in the US, and Quincy proved to the world that he could not be box into jazz.
“Music serves a purpose—expressing truth, expressing beauty, expressing reality, and also expressing dreams and hopes.”Herbie Hancock Jazz pianist
His work advocated the universality of the language of music, and shattered prejudices both artistic and social. If a section of the jazz community was viewing Quincy as a “sellout,” the great jazz pianist Herbie Hancock, pointed out in his defence, “Music serves a purpose—expressing truth, expressing beauty, expressing reality, and also expressing dreams and hopes. To limit it to one mode of expression is really a crime.” The fact is, Quincy never turned his back on jazz; but for that matter, there was hardly any music he did not find interesting or that he could not enhance and improve upon.
Quincy survived a brain aneurysm that nearly killed him in 1974 but that did not stop him from branching out into the prevalent new sounds. With a musical foresight that can only be called radical, he merged the various sounds, and produced some of the greatest pop and rock music. The culmination of his achievements at this stage was his collaboration with Michael Jackson in ‘Off the Wall’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’. The new sound that came out of that collaboration—the merging of pop, post-disco, rock and funk; the irresistible foot-tapping rhythms played along with the dark menacing overtones of the bass; the juxtaposition of the synthetic signature sound of the 1980s and the scorching guitar-driven tradition of hard rock—changed the direction of popular music and established Michael Jackson as the undisputed King of Pop. The three albums together grossed more than $130 million worldwide; and ‘Thriller’, 42 years after its release, continues to be the highest selling album of all time.
28 Grammys
Quincy co-produced the iconic ‘We are the World’ in 1985. The single was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. | Photo Credit: AFP
Between the release of ‘Thriller’ and ‘Bad’, Quincy co-produced the iconic ‘We are the World’ in 1985. The single, written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, performed by the who’s-who of the music world, and whose proceeds were meant for the famine-affected in Ethiopia, had sold more than 40 million physical copies. The same year the movie ‘The Color Purple’, for which he had not only given the music, but had also produced, received enormous critical and commercial success. This prompted Quincy to branch out to film and television production, and in 1990 he set up his own film and TV production company, Quincy Jones Entertainment. One of his biggest TV hits was the Will Smith starrer ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’. The series ran from 1990 to 1996.
For all his forays into different fields of arts, music remained Quincy’s first priority. Such was the respect he enjoyed in the fraternity, that even the great Miles Davis allowed himself to be persuaded by Quincy to play his older materials (something Miles had never done in his six-decade career) in the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991. Miles, accompanied by an ensemble led by Quincy, that included the Gil Evans Orchestra, recreated some of his old masterpieces, including Boplicity, Miles Ahead, Solea and others. This turned out to be Miles’s last concert as he passed away two months later on September 28, 1991.
Quincy continued to produce and compose right till the end. His brain aneurysms prevented him from playing too much trumpet, but he did make the odd appearance in other people’s albums now and then. In a career spanning more than 70 years, Quincy won 28 Grammys, two honorary Oscars (he was nominated seven times before), an Emmy (for music production in the TV series ‘Roots’), and a Tony Award for the musical adaptation of ‘The Color Purple’. Quincy, the grandchild of an ex-slave had risen to become a titan in the realm of popular art in its all-encompassing form. He was a musical visionary with a Midas touch who seemed to be able to achieve anything he set out to do with alarming ease… probably the only thing he didn’t know how to do was drive a car.
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